قصيدة العصر الإلهي للقديس غير الطاهر

## Illustrations

## Character Introductions

Taiwan edition. Transcribed from Light Novel Kingdom. Scans: Qianli Zhuyin Image editing: yfqh008 Seiru — The protagonist. A prince of a fallen kingdom, burning with the flames of revenge. Under Tifa's banner, he lives a life in which his talents go unrecognized. Aetra — The seventy-fifth (I did not mistype that; please don't hit me) princess of the Magical Kingdom of Figaro. Praised as the "Silver Saint." Seiru's adopted younger sister. Tifa — The fifth princess of the Magical Kingdom of Figaro. She has trained until she can command the Lu-engines with her own body. Jeru — The third prince of the Magical Kingdom of Figaro. After learning of Seiru's ambition, he becomes his friend. Audnes — Emperor of the Magical Kingdom of Figaro. He means to conquer the world with the magical power of the "Lu-engines."

## Prologue

Aside from the priest, the only person who covered the coffin with earth was me. Mother's remains had been laid in the grave before my eyes barely an hour before, and the only one still standing at the grave was myself — seven years old, and already having to serve as chief mourner. The priest had gone back. Now I was alone. Unlike the hush before the grave in the secluded courtyard, lively music drifted from the great house beyond. The relatives who had gathered under the name of attending the funeral were holding a ball. The piece changed. It was a symphony, written to praise the saint of myth. Even beneath this thinly overcast, cold sky, I could hear the melody that rendered the beautiful saint's purity and ethereal grace. "Tch...!" Listening from afar to that exquisite sound, I clenched my fists, my brow locked tight. There was no funeral dirge to be heard at all. That place was simply another world. To them, Mother's death was nothing more than a chance for kin to gather in one hall. But then again, that man still hadn't come here. Perhaps he ought to. ...Because the man who was, by rights, Mother's husband should at least have been present in form— "Brother Seiru, smile. You have to smile if you want to be happy. That's what my lady mother told me." At that moment, a small index finger quietly poked the space between my brows. When I came back to myself, a girl I had never seen stood before me. She called me elder brother, so she must be one of my adopted younger sisters. She looked younger than I was. Young as this girl was, her gra...

## Chapter 1: The Long Road to Becoming Allies in War

Explosion, explosion, explosion— With a thunderous roar the ground blew open. Sand, gravel, and dust swallowed the view, and shellfire poured down like a rainstorm. But the container truck never eased off. It tore ahead at full speed without pause, dodging the bombardment, punching straight out of the blast cyclone. The wheels screamed like a girl. The accelerator was wide open. The wheel spun through one hair's-breadth turn after another. This was Litton, a city of an enemy nation equipped with a military base. On streets empty of any citizen, filled only with the fires of war, the armies of the Figaro Magical Empire and the Republic of Schezchigold were locked in battle. Only two military bases of the Republic of Schezchigold now remained: here in Litton, and a city ahead with its back against the border. Every other city had been occupied, and had already become the State of Schezchigold under the Figaro Magical Empire. In matériel the enemy was at a total disadvantage, yet the ferocity of their guns completely outstripped the Figaro Magical Empire. They seemed to have shifted most of their remaining forces here, and looked ready to settle the outcome in this place. Against a death-or-glory attack like that, the ranks of the Magical Empire's army — which ought to have been able to win by force of numbers — were in thorough disorder. Parts of the front had already collapsed and had even begun to fall back. Was the Empire's army truly this frail? And yet, in the midst of that, one large high-speed container truck hauling a container drove alone, deep into the enemy camp, charging straight in. It was driven by Seiru = Segua, a seventeen-year-old royal of the Figaro Magical Empire. "—Huh!?" ...

## Chapter 2: Dance, Silver — With All Your Might

『Good morning, Brother. What a beautiful morning.』 Those were Aetra's words, but Seiru had not heard that bell-like voice, nor a living voice through the PCD. He had only read her lips across the windows between their rooms. "I'd rather wake inside a beautiful voice. Even a canary's cry couldn't beat yours." 『What? R-really? I love your voice too, Brother. Every time I talk with you, I wish a voice like this could stay with me forever.』 Aetra held a PCD in her hands. Restless, she looked away. On the morning after their secret meeting in the dead of night, Seiru gazed at a room in the annex across the lawn and, as agreed, finished his private talk with Aetra. Seiru read Aetra's lips, while Aetra held the PCD to her ear and, through the CCD video camera still installed in Seiru's room, received the sound of this room offline. 『And another thing, Brother — what did you mean by that hateful line just now? Are you still lazing in bed?』 "No. Last night's confession came out so badly that I thought I'd practice, so I'd be ready to use it next time." 『...You don't have to, idiot. Because from next time on, it won't be the first time.』 Aetra glared over at him, face red... Getting along with a girl really was difficult. "Anyway, how long do you intend to leave that CCD camera installed? For the sake of my privacy, there really shouldn't be a thing like..."

## Chapter 3: Intentions Laid Bare, the Plot Brought to Judgment

A dark, cold morning that now and then sent a shiver down the spine. A transport run had been scheduled, so Litton Base was already in operation. Aetra, short of blood, would return to the consulate with Vitam to recuperate. As he had the night before, Seiru sent the idle hangers-on away, then came to the room of this acting legion commander. "As for that container truck and the container, no one seems to have noticed anything amiss." Seiru sat down on the bed with a creak, while Aetra, neatly dressed, sat up from the waist and leaned back against that bed. "So far everything has gone smoothly. No one seems to have noticed that the armament ledger figures were tampered with either. We've already leaked the container and the surveillance satellite's flight times to the spies, and not a single person has caught on. On top of that, we've got the armory duty roster and everyone's rest schedule fully in hand." The fifty-seventh princess, dressed in a suit, nodded when she heard this. "That's wonderful. Next we only have to swap out the container mounted on the truck." "Right. It would be trouble if the Republican army surrendered now. We have to find a way to keep them holding out until we've seized the consul general's seat." The corners of both their mouths crooked upward, and they smiled at each other, furtive and sly. After that, Aetra would return to the consulate, and Tifa's younger brother Bertrand would also arrive to take up his post. At the same time, after noon, Emperor Audnes would come to inspect the consulate. Today was that extraordinary a day. "Still — to think Bertrand would actually be stripped of his Lu-engine. I really didn't..."

## Final Chapter

After one night had passed, the ceremony of Aetra's inauguration as consul general would be held today. At the start of the day, a short message arrived on Seiru's PCD. 【I'm not emperor yet, but for the time being, leave the people of Segua in my care.】 It was a message from his friend, newly serving at the same time as Consul General of the State of Segua. 【I'm counting on you.】 Seiru pressed the send key hard, then left his room alone. Besides his existing titles of royal and aide to the consul general, Seiru gained a new title today: Captain of the Consul General's Personal Guard. The part of the work that meant cleaning up messes seemed not to have changed at all. Just before the new consul general's inauguration ceremony, Seiru, finished with the miscellaneous chores, went into the backstage lounge, since Aetra would soon have to take the stage. "Why so slow? Your station is different now, you know?" Aetra, seated in the backstage lounge, said it with a smile. "The station is fine enough. I'm royalty, at least." "My, how splendid. You were a prince to begin with. You must be quite favored by women, surely?" "Not really. The only woman fit to match a prince like me might be a princess from somewhere or other." "What—?" Aetra, who had been flushed red, instantly pressed a hand to her forehead and lowered her head. "...No, wait. Is this a real confession? Or did you just say it offhand?" "Hm? No. I said it offhand. I didn't mean anything else. Sorry." "What? ...Don't apologize to me." "...Is that so?" "That's how it is..."

## Afterword

Late one night I did the aerobics I hadn't done in a long time, but a wrong movement injured a muscle and I couldn't sleep. I paced around the house, and then it suddenly occurred to me... Right — I'll write a story of revenge— And so I finished this debut work of mine, *The God-Age Poem of the Impure Saint*. A pleasure to meet you all. I am Hijiri Niimi. 2013 really was a year in which all sorts of things happened, and for me personally it was a year in which great things happened as well. Of the great things that happened this year, third in shock was that my beloved Hiroshima team finally made it into Class A for the first time in sixteen years. "This hurts... I love the Hiroshima team..." I had endured that pain for many long years, and at last it came to an end. I was so happy. My favorite of all, Hirose, broke the Nippon Professional Baseball record for consecutive plate appearances reaching base, and let a team that had been struggling when the season first began hold on all the way to the end. It is a shame that Maeda Tomonori and the others I had supported for so many years announced their retirements, but I still look forward very much to the Hiroshima team's fine play from next year on. Of the great things that happened this year, second in shock was of course that I myself finally debuted as a writer. If I explain this work a little: basically it is a serious war of magical robots, with an element of credit fraud added in — that should make it easy to understand, right? The feel of it is a boy and a girl who cannot fulfill their "wishes" on their own, confessing to each other the "thoughts buried in their hearts for years," and passing through "youth" hand in hand. Understood that way, it's easy to...